Aspects of the present disclosure provide techniques for beam failure detection and related timing determinations, such as for applying a default beam after beam failure recovery response (BFRR) message. A method by a user equipment (UE) may include detecting failure of a beam associated with a first cell. The detecting can include performing beam failure detection (BFD) of a beam pair link (BPL) associated with the first cell (e.g., secondary cell (Scell)). The first cell can be in carrier aggregation (CA) with a second cell. The UE may send a beam failure recovery request (BFRQ) message on a second cell (e.g., a primary cell (Pcell)). The BFRQ message can include a candidate recovery beam for the first cell. The UE can receive a BFRR message on the second cell and determine a duration from reception of the BFRR message until using a default beam for communications on the first cell.